


Sleep Serenade

by velvet_and_shortchanged



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Insomnia, M/M, Music, secret mutual flush crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 16:45:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17832341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velvet_and_shortchanged/pseuds/velvet_and_shortchanged
Summary: Insomnia? Never heard of it.Dave decides the best way to help Karkat sleep is with music. Maybe this won't be so terrible after all.





	Sleep Serenade

It appeared on your nightstand this afternoon, and, frankly, you're fucking scared of it. 

A regular morning had passed. You woke up later than you should have, hit your head on one of the cabinets grabbing some pathetic attempt at a breakfast, and then slipped over your own fucking feet in the ablution block like some sort of dumbass grub with no control over their own pathetically flailing limbs. Safe to say, life sucked.bulge on the meteor about ninety nine percent of the time. 

And upon returning to your room, the outside world having completely annihilated you once again, something had mysteriously and miraculously appeared on your desk besides your husktop, currently displaying ignored messages in blue, red, and teal. A small rectangle, black with a clear center, two wheels in the middle. This small black box could be capable of anything. You decide to mull through the possibilities before even getting close to this thing.

Could be a stupid fucking human prank from John. One time, you went to open what the rest of the humans called a refrigerator, and took out what appeared to be a tasty can, unfortunately filled with some sort of weird human vegetables, called peanuts. A perfectly good can, going to waste- the Mayor would be hurt. But upon further inspection, you opened it and shrieked, clawing the soft aluminum apart with your nails because a fucking _SNAKE_ jumped RIGHT OUT AT YOU, **WHAT THE EVERLIVING FUCK**.

Another possibility was that it was some random thing left here by Terezi. She often found odd shit and just tossed it around the meteor aimlessly. Not that she really cared where everything ended up in the long run, all that mattered was that she could smell it still.

All this pondering has gotten you jack shit, and now you've just been standing here like a complete imbecile for five whole ass minutes without actually doing anything. Great job. Stop being such a gogdamn nookwhiffer and touch the plastic rectangle.

"Oh, you found the mixtape. Pretty sick, right? Retro as hell. We're going hella old school with this shit." 

You glanced up to see Human #4 enter the room, uninvited, as per usual. Behind his shades you swear you see a ghost of excitement. You desperately chase away any mixed pale or flushed feelings, you cannot let your quasi-quadrant bullshit get in the way of very important, life threatening business right now.

"What is this small rectangle, and can it hurt me," You offered through gritted teeth, puffing out slightly. You certainly weren't going to take any shit from a hopefully not sentient being that looked like a fucked up light particle viewer from five sweeps ago.

You tore your intensive gaze from the black rectangle back to Dave as you heard that deep and rumbly laugh of his. "Nah, man, chill. It's a mix. Don't trolls have music and stuff?" Quirking an eyebrow, Dave seemed- well, not confused or dumbfounded, just sheepish. The trolls and humans definitely had some differences. 

"Yes, of course we have music, you fucking panwiped idiot," You snapped. Dave just pushed his eyebrow farther up. You somehow resist the urge to shove the blond hair collection over his eyes up into his scalp once and for all and continue on after clearing your throat. "Yeah, we have music. But it's only in movies, that's it."

"Only in movies?" Dave had never looked so horrified.

"Pretty much." Listening to music compromises your senses, and if you can't hear jack shit because you're too busy jamming out to the new troll CupcaKe album, then your jugular is ripped out ten seconds later. Or at least, that's what the government and their biology told the trolls.

"That's lame as shit. How the hell do you guys function? Are you all just chillin' on the troll bus, going home, shit is silent as fuck, and everyone is engaged in an intense staring contest because no one has Airpods in? Or do you actually, like, talk to each other? What the fuck is u-"

"Strider!" Dave snapped out of his rambling haze. "We don't listen to music much. It's not something common. We just don't. Now surely that can be so absurdly difficult to get through your smashed-in pan?" 

Dave just shook his head, chuckling. "Alright, man. Whatever. Culture sesh over. Here, you'll need these." He dropped what seemed to be some red string and a similar black box into your hands. 

"Wow. Thanks for this," You muttered flatly. "I sure fucking love when Dave Strider gives me string and black boxes."

"No- they're-" Dave sighed, not sounding frustrated, simply thinking. "The string is what helps you hear it. You need the box to play the music. It's a Walkman." He reached over, grabbing the "tape" and slotting it into the Walkman. Then, he found the slightly larger end of the string, sticking it in to a hole. He pressed the triangle button on the Walkman, grabbing the other ends of the string and pushing them over your ears.

WOAH.

"Holy grubfucking shit what the fuck what the fuck wha-" You aren't exactly sure what you said there. You couldn't hear yourself over the sound of music. Like from your movies, but way louder, and it was just right there. 

Dave pushed up one side of the string. "Calm down, dude. This is how it works," He chuckled, showing you the rewind and play buttons on the Walkman, and how to put in the headphones.

The music is all this rap- fast and loud and generally uncomfortable. It makes your head spin and you decidedly hate it with a passion. Dave relentlessly defends it. "Come on. I'll find you some sick shit you'll like. Even though you're about as picky as baby, throwing your goddamn spoon off your high chair, splattering mushed peas all over the fuckin walls-" He pauses, blushing a little when he realizes how long he's been going on, even though this happens basically on the daily.

"Alright, man. I'm determined to find you something. This is the only thing that lets me sleep, so... Hey. I'll make you a night mix. Just crank this shit when you wanna pass out." He nods. You sigh, squeezing your eyes shut tightly. You know for a fact that Dave is completely unrelentless when he's determined (gog, it's so cute) and he won't give in until you do.

"Fine," You breathed, and a grin bigger than his ego plastered itself across his lips. He swiped the tape. "I'll make you a five day mix. Just five nights, dude. If your life isn't completely and totally transformed, and your chakras aren't all aligned and the feung shui of the energy in your ass or whatever isn't jazzed as all hell, I'll leave you alone."

"Jegus fuck, alright, I already said yes. Now, shoo. You've got mixes to make, music boy." You rolled your eyes as he skittered off, probably to go begin his track selecting.

Fuck, if that wasn't adorable.

After another restless night of sleep, you find five tapes sitting on your desk the next day when you wake up. He probably just selected the first five songs off his playlist, addressing his claim that every single song he has is officially a "bop", whatever the fuck that was supposed to judge, you weren't sure. 

Completely dreading the approaching night, you could just lie and say you hated all of them without even listening. You heartily considered this option, but your brain abandoned you and flashed you pictures of Dave's face lit up, he was so excited when you actually agreed to this. And you were definitely an asshole, already the lowest of the low, a mutant at that. But you did have the capability for emotion, and you could choose not to be a dick here.

So you do.

When you've finally determined it late enough to actually sleep (it was around eleven, which is when you typically made futile attempts to sleep), you slammed your door shut. It let the rest of the assclowns on the rock know to keep it the fuck down from here on out. You took the headphones, and it takes a few aimless stabs to find the hole they belong in, but once plugged in, you shuffle over to your bed (fuck, you miss your coon so much!) and flop down. It's easy to push the tape in, and then you feel around and press the black square button, and then the red triangle, still a little startled when the sound starts.

But you do drift off to Wiz Khalifa (what a weird fucking name- but you don't question that right now) on night one. It's unexpected how easy it is to go to sleep with sound in the background. Back at your hive, it was almost always completely silent. Terezi had been lucky to hear birds at all hours, and you had heard from the humans that they heard noise at night anyways. But now you're out so fast it scares you a little. 

Night two comes and it's surprising how easy it is to fall asleep with a man named Tyler singing about seeing people. Whether he was referencing death or travel, you'll never know, you're already asleep before you can entertain the thought long enough to fully consider it. You've never really liked Dave's sick beats. They didn't seem all too sick to you, just repetitive ear rape filled with drums and all sorts of other rambunctious bullshit. But this music was okay. Quieter, slower. It was definitely something Dave liked, you could tell that much, but it was nice. You outright refuse to tell him this, but it can be internally, quietly true, and guess what? No one has to fucking know!

And you partially despise the fact that you wake up somewhat well rested. 

Later, awake and in full denial, you decide to at least find out all you can about all this music. Dave likes it, and it's obviously something pretty fucking important to him if he never shuts up about it and bothers making his own. 

Each tape is labelled with all the songs and the singers. You dig through page after page online later, finding every work by all of them. You take the headphones Dave gave you to listen on your own. There's no plug in to your husktop for them, so you barge into Rose's room on some ramble about Kanaya's fabric needs to proceed to hog her computer. That's something Dave especially doesn't have to know about.

Another day passes and you dread the night slightly less. Because instead of palpable fear that you'll die in your sleep, or won't get any in the first place, has dissipated slightly. You know you have a chance now. You know that, yes, it is physically possible to fall asleep. Even though the danger of another troll or Dave himself pouncing on you has risen consequently, risks must be taken here. For the good of your sleep cycle, you think you can handle a single week.

Whoever this Frank Ocean is, you decide you like him most. The lower voices are the ones you like most- for no reason in particular, the rich timbre makes you calm and sleepy. There's a certain someone with a low voice who you enjoy quite a lot (not Dave! Troll Morgan Freeman). His music is good, you finally push your cowardly self forwards and admit it. You like how slow it is, not too repetitive that it's annoying, and it's the quietest and calmest of everything Dave has. There's a lot of him on the fourth night list, and you briefly consider taking it quietly for yourself after this whole ordeal is over. 

You barely see Dave during your experiment. Kanaya regards you suspiciously- being quiet and hidden normally means other things to her, so she keeps a close but far eye on your behavior. 

And while you hate to admit it, Dave was right on this one.

* * *

 

The last fateful day of your experiment. Harley would be overjoyed to hear of your findings, she would excitedly document the whole thing if you actually let her near you with any sort of recording device (you're kind of a photo menace).

You stick in the last tape, and you swear you feel a pang of excitement slash sadness, both of which you out right reject for this moment. Fuck off, emotions, we didn't have a meeting scheduled, talk to my fucking secretary-

"What, he really took to it? Karkat?"

You whip around when you hear your name through the door, shuffling over and pressing your ear to the wood. 

"Yeah, I swear. Trolls don't have music. He seemed pretty iffy about it, but with my massive genius and neverending persuasive skills-" You hear what sounds be a traditional Rose snicker, and you silently second that. "-I convinced the little shit to try it out. Y'know, with the old Walkman I found in a drawer."

"Hm."

"Whadda you mean, 'hm'? He fucking listened, he's trying it out! Even if he isn't, whatever. I made an attempt. Interspecies relations, right? E.T. is listening to Tyler, The Creator because of me, Rose. I'm enlightening him."

"No, no. It's nothing. Congratulations." Her voice has a sly, knowing edge. Fuck, she totally figured out what Karkat had been fucking around on her computer for.

"You did some research on quadrants, did you not?"

"Well- I- yeah, I did-" He did?! He actually bothered to learn about quadrants? What the fuck? "-but just so he'd leave me alone. Not for like, weird reasons, it's totally chill. I don't really enjoy having a rabid Karkat Vantas fuckin' clawing up my curtains and clutching my pant leg because I don't know the difference between flushed and caliginous."

"But you do properly understand the difference, don't you?"

"Of course I do, it's basic-" You hear Dave pause, and then an obvious sigh followed by annoyed muttering. You slink away from the door, sinking onto the bed as you have all the previous days.

Well, you don't have time to unpack all that now. 

Fucking sleep time for Vantas.

You glance over the side, where the label is- it's different than the other three, it just says "mix four- seeing red". How fucking ironic. Clearly, Dave made this one as a joke, thinking you wouldn't even listen this far. 

You slide the tape into the slot for a last time, the routine motion alone making you feel tired suddenly. You've become significantly better at getting the headphones plugged in, and you shut your eyes, almost ready to fall asleep already as the headphones slipped over your ears (still slightly uncomfortable, human ears were a little smaller).

As soon as the sound began to play, you weren't sure what to think because you knew something was off.

The recording wasn't professional, there was sounds of shifting and it was clearly not done in a fancy studio. A voice layered on top of some beats and guitar, maybe some special out of studio Frank Ocean, that's kind of what it sound-

Holy shit, this was _Dave_.

This wasn't one of his mixes, it was something he had done himself, something he recorded by himself, something he wrote himself. 

_And why did it sound so good?_

Dave rapped a LOT. A whole fucking shit ton. He rapped day and night, over video chats, over text. It was a constantly obnoxious stream of utter hoofbeast shit. But this was something different, it was planned, and he was hitting notes that he clearly meant to, and there wasn't interruptions of people telling him to shut the hell up. And gog, his fucking VOICE. It was smooth and low and you hate how much you love it, you want to drown yourself in that voice. It isn't perfect and cut clean and neat like all of the other songs you've heard on the tapes, but it's still better somehow. 

You're purposely forcing yourself not to sleep right now. You want to hear the whole thing first. After your full minute of reveling in the fact that this was actually Dave, you want to understand what he's saying. 

"because he's red, and I'm red, I'm, I'm, seein' red. I'm, I'm, seein' red. I'm, I'm, seein' red, because we're both red now."

Okay, this was going to take some serious musical evaluation and human-to-troll conversion to understand what this was about. Because if this were a troll song, whoever this second troll was would be completely embarrassed for having either his hemospectrum position called out being so low, or completely embarrassed because this other troll just returned flushed feelings in this way.

And obviously it wasn't, because it was a stupid human song that was probably about two guys wearing red sunglasses.

You fall asleep easily despite the mental turmoil, just barely picking up the last few lines of his smooth voice. "He's not really red, he's actually black- not in the racist way you fucks, this is about me being a goddamn xenophile." That was all totally nonsense. Nonsense, but the sound of his voice was still nice. 

You mentally curse your bloodpusher for having such shitty yet wonderful taste in men.

* * *

The next morning (the whole meteor didn't actually have morning and night, they all pretty much depended on Dave and whoever made food to decide what time it was) when you rolled out of bed and onto the floor, you felt better rested than he had in sweeps. Seriously. You've never felt this fucking good. 

And it was all thanks to Dave fucking Strider, of course.

You scooped up the tapes and the Walkman, stacking the headphones on top of the accumulated pile and stalking out into the kitchen, setting it all down on the counter and tugging open the fridge door. You probably looked like a gogdamn mess, well rested or not, in much too large pajamas with hair that rivaled Gamzee's at this point.

While sticking your head in, you heard another pair of feet shuffling out. 

"Hey, you made it through all of em?"

You grab a tub of oatmeal and bugs, before deciding that it's probably a little early in the morning to be eating. Whatever, you don't want to pull a dumbass move and throw your stomach off. You shut the fridge door and turn to face Dave, who was leaning on the counter. "Yes, I did, astoundingly enough."

He grinned. "And? What did you think?" 

You give a nearly emotionless shrug. Dave scoffed. "C'mon, 'kat. I wanna hear what you thought. I'm doing some sciencey shit here, cultural studies." You could give a shit about science and cultural studies. But the little nickname forced you to give in. 

"They were fine."

"Karkaaaat."

"For fuck's sake, I liked them! They were fucking great and I've slept more than I have in sweeps out of a coon all because of some fucking noise recorded on a machine!"

Dave was quiet, his face relaxing before breaking out into a happy little smile, one that you never got to see. You remained quiet, though, already mildly embarrassed, shoving your face into your hands, claws lightly scratching along your scalp.

"You did?"

"Yeah, I did." You snapped.

"Which ones?"

You sat up slightly, going from a deadened slouch to a regular one. You glanced over the tapes, pushing the last two towards the grinning human.

"These ones? Let's see..." He hummed quietly, picking up the third one and turning it over, scanning over the titles. 

"... Ey, a Frank Ocean guy, huh? Softie." You growled lowly, baring your NOT AT ALL DULL fangs. 

"Woah, woah, put the vampire teeth away, I was kidding."

He picked up the other tape, flipping it over. His face drained of color at first, and then he turned redder than you'd ever seen him. Yeah, he was red, all right. 

"Th- no, this is not supposed to be in here..." He muttered, his finger grazing over each of the tapes as he did a recount, muttering a swear. Clearly it wasn't supposed to be in here, he had grabbed the wrong tape, but you weren't saying anything just yet.

"This one, uh, yeah this one's just a joke, some stupid shit me and John did when we were bored, like y'know how some people make card towers, well we record ourselves singing, and it's pr-"

"I liked it."

Dave just looked up at you, mouth slightly open.

"Y... Y' did?" He finally got out a moment later.

"Yeah, I did. But if it's so horrible and so clearly a joke, then maybe I can just take it for myself, since you don't want it." You had actually hoped for a second there that maybe you had a chance. That maybe the song was about you. But of course it wasn't, that was stupid. You'd rather just be left to your own delusions and daydreams.

You reached out and slipped the tape out of Dave's hands, pushing it into the Walkman and plugging in the headphones, shuffling back into your room without another word. You didn't like being this quiet normally, you actually had a lot to say, but this didn't feel like the time. You just wanted to go back to bed at this point. Gog, fuck emotions and fuck Dave. (You know you don't mean that.)

"Hey!" You heard Dave scramble after you, but you were already in your room with the door shut, falling back onto your bed and crawling under the covers. 

The headphones were already over your ears, and the outside world was gone. No more Dave, no more dumb fucking flushed feelings, no more acting like some pathetic school wriggler all embarrassed. 

Your door creaked open, and you turned down the music just slightly. The door shut, and someone walked in, your bed creaking slightly as they sat down on the mattress. You slipped the headphones off, setting them aside and sighing, glancing over to who you assumed to be either Kanaya or Dave. Yeah, it was him. 

"It's not a joke, and I'm pretty damn sure you know that," He mumbled.

"Well, maybe I don't, because some people enjoy being dickwads who put up pointless walls!" There was that loud voice.

"It's embarrassing!"

"I can tell." Your voice went cold.

Dave didn't say anything.

He swung his legs over the bed, scooting over and laying next to you, facing the ceiling. 

"It's embarrassing if other people hear it, not you," He said quietly.

You didn't respond for a moment.

"You better not be bullshitting me, Strider." 

"I'm not!"

"Good."

It was quiet again, and then Dave scooted over, slipping his arms around your waist, right near your grubscars. Fucking dick move, testing your trust like this- no, that's not him, Dave wouldn't do that to anyone, even you... You shut your eyes, not pushing him off, carefully setting your head against his chest. The pounding noise startled you a bit- humas' bloodpushers were so much louder than the trolls'. 

It wasn't like this was out of the ordinary for you two anyways. Before this awkward little break, you basically spent every second together according to Kanaya. So this was comfortable. And safe, most importantly. You would never, ever, ever, do this with another troll, except maybe just maybe Kanaya. You knew the humans were weak, but you also knew that you could have your neck open and exposed, have your grubscars easily accessible, and not need to worry about being culled simply because Dave was, well, Dave. He smelled like apples and spice and he was about ten times warmer than you ever would be.

This really was your safe place. Your eyes quickly began to shut, and as Dave's hand pressed to the top of your head, brushing through your hair. It was surprisingly easy to sleep in Dave's arms, because while you two did often go on amazing movie binges (no matter how much he made fun of them) you hadn't ever trusted Dave enough to sleep with him until now.

And this time you didn't need those tapes.

**Author's Note:**

> Another quick drabble for y'all until i get chapter two of Personal Jesus up. I'm just itching to get my davekat fill and can't wait any longer lmao  
> Just in case you're wondering, songs/artists mentioned are  
> Wiz Khalifa- "Up"  
> Tyler, The Creator- "See You Again" and "Goblin"  
> Frank Ocean- "Moon River"  
> I made a futile attempt to capture a lot- Dave's personal taste, but also a more muted mix that's basically that goddamn dork flirting.


End file.
